European Impressions of the American Worker 9780231881838

Table of contents :
Foreword
Contents
I. The Turn of the Century
II. British Productivity Team Reports, 1950
Notes

Citation preview

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF B U S I N E S S , COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

HUMAN

RESOURCES

STUDIES

European Impressions of the American Worker by R O B E R T W. S M U T S

KING'S CROWN PRESS COLUMBIA

UNIVERSITY, 1

9 5 3

NEW

YORK

COPYRIGHT

1 9 5 3 BY COLUMBIA U N I V E R S I T Y

KINO'S CROWN

PRESS

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I S AN I M P R I N T E S T A B L I S H E D BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MAKING

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P U B L I S H E D IN GREAT BRITAIN, CANADA, INDIA, A N D P A K I S T A N BY G E O F F R E Y C U M B E R L E G E , OXFORD U N I V E R S I T Y L O N D O N , T O R O N T O , BOMBAY, A N D

PRESS

KARACHI

M A N U F A C T U R E D IN T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S O F AMERICA

Conservation of Human Resources A RESEARCH PROJECT GRADUATE SCHOOL OF B U S I N E S S , COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

The CONSERVATION OF HUMAN RESOURCES project was established in 1950 within the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, by General Eisenhower. Philip Young, then Dean of the Graduate School of Business, assumed responsibility for the general administration and supervision of the project from its inception until the spring of this year, when he became Chairman of the Civil Service Commission. Eli Ginzberg, Professor of Economics in the Graduate School of Business, is Director of the project. Sponsoring

Organizations

AMERICAN C A N COMPANY BIOELOW-SANFORD CARPET

COMPANY

CITIES SERVICE COMPANY C L U E T T , PEABODY AND COMPANY COLUMBIA BROADCASTING S Y S T E M CONSOLIDATED EDISON COMPANY OF N E W YORK CONTINENTAL C A N COMPANY E . I . DU PONT DE NEMOURS AND COMPANY GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY GENERAL FOODS CORPORATION RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA STANDARD O I L COMPANY

(New Jersey)

T H E N E W YORK COMMUNITY T R U S T

In addition to the foregoing, the Ford Foundation has also contributed to the financing of the project.

S T A F F

DIRECTOR E L I GINZBERO,

Ph.D. ADVISOR

H O W A R D M C C . SNYDER,

Major General,

M.C., U.S.

Army

CONSULTANT SOL W . GINSBURO, M . D . ,

Psychiatry

RESEARCH

ASSOCIATES

Manpower and Personnel Social Psychology H E N R Y D A V I D , P h . D . , Labor History J O H N L . H E R M A , P h . D . , Psychology

JAMES K . ANDERSON, A.B., D O U G L A S W . BRAY, P h . D . ,

RESEARCH

ASSISTANTS

M.A., Economics* M.A., Labor Economics* R Y A N , Captain, U . S . Army, Social Work S M U T S , M . A . , Economic History

DALE L . HIESTAND, I . PEOOY M O S E S , FRANCIS J . ROBERT W .

ADMINISTRATIVE

Administrative Assistant* Statistical Assistant PATRICIA S T E G M A N , Secretary J E A N N E T O M B L E N , Secretary to the Director BRYNA BALL,

STEWART K N A P P ,

•National Manpower Council Staff

Foreword IN 1950 General Dwight D. Eisenhower established the Conservation of Human Resources project to continue and expand studies in the human resources field initiated at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University in the 1930's. The principal objective of the project is to increase basic knowledge in the field of human resources and thereby provide a solid foundation for policies aimed at conserving this most valuable national resource. The Conservation of Human Resources Progress Report, Summer, 1953, summarizes the results of the project's investigations through the middle of this year. Some of these results have been published either in book form or as articles in scholarly journals. We consider it desirable to introduce at this time another method for making our findings available. We have decided to issue a series of monographs entitled Human Resources Studies in order to reach a wider audience than is possible through journals for those aspects of our work which are not suited for full-scale book publication. A major objective of this monograph series is to present our preliminary approaches and findings in the hope that we will profit from criticism and suggestions while our larger investigations are still under way. The publication of European Impressions of the American Worker inaugurates the Human Resources Studies of the Graduate School of Business. Two other studies are also being released: Psychiatry and Military Manpower [v]

Policy: a Reappraisal of the Experience in World War II and Issues in the Study of Talent. This first monograph is a by-product of a major investigation by the Conservation of Human Resources project into the key changes that have taken place in the position of the American worker since 1890. In evaluating how the American worker lived, worked, and thought in 1890 in contrast with today, we reviewed the impressions of foreign visitors who studied the American worker then and now. Perspective is required for balanced judgment. Because of lack of perspective, Americans have frequently failed to understand the sources of their country's strengths and weaknesses as well as those of other nations. Many of the difficulties which the nation has encountered during the post-war years in its efforts to assist the free world to rehabilitate and expand its economic structure aire the results of the way Americans view their own history and that of other nations. The Conservation of Human Resources project seeks to increase our knowledge and understanding of our own development, and it is hoped this monograph will contribute to this objective. The first of the two chapters summarizes the reactions to work and workers in America of a large number of European travelers who visited the United States between 1885 and 1910. It uses selected reports of these visitors to gain perspective on the American worker, but it is not a comprehensive review of the treatment of the American worker in the travel literature of the period. The second chapter is based on the reports of the British Productivity Teams which studied American industry during the last few years. Since it is concerned mainly with British comments on the human factors in productivity, and not with the technical analyses which constitute the bulk of the reports, it should [vi]

not be taken as a balanced summary of the findings of the teams. In preparing these materials Mr. Smuts had the guidance of Professor Henry David, who has primary responsibility for the project's larger study, The American Worker,

1890-1950.

We are indebted to the following for permission to quote from their publications: Dodd-Mead and Co., G. W. Steevens, The Land of the Dollar; Doubleday and Co., Hugo Miinsterberg, The Americans; Harper and Brothers, H. G. Wells, The Future in America; Methuen and Co. Ltd., Katherine G. Busbey, Home Life in America; John Murray Ltd., Monsignor Count Vay de Vaya and Luskod, The Inner Life of the United States; Charles Scribner's Sons, Price Collier, America and the Americans from a French Point of View; the British Productivity Council, Reports of the British Productivity Teams. E l i

Ginzberg

DIRECTOR, CONSERVATION HUMAN RESOURCES

Graduate School of Business Columbia University August, 1953

[vii]

OF

Contents

I.

n.

T H E T U R N O F T H E CENTURY

1

Work in a Classless Society

2

Achievement and Aspiration

7

The American at Work

14

Conclusion

24

BRITISH PRODUCTIVITY TEAM R E P O R T S , 1 9 5 0

30

American Industry in 1950

30

Productivity

33

Work in the American Factory

38

Industrial Relations

47

Conclusion: 1890 and 1950

54

NOTES

59

[ix]

I

The Turn of the Century DURING the early 1890's Paul Bourget, a perceptive French visitor, was perplexed by what seemed to be a paradox in American industrial life. On the one hand, strikes in America were sometimes marked by such bitterness and violence that in any other country they would be regarded as signs of civil war. "At other times, and with the exception of such moments of over-strained feeling," he wrote, "if you talk with laboring men, you will find them evidently happy in their work, performing it well, with much of the independence of free citizens in their rugged faces." 1 In the next decade H. G. Wells described the "thwarted hopes" and "deepening discontent" of the American worker, springing from the "huge accumulation of property in a few hands that is now in progress." But, Wells added, "The European reader must dismiss . . . any conception of . . . a mass of people undergoing impoverishment through the enrichment of the few. He must substitute . . . a mass of people, very busy, roughly prosperous, generally selfsatisfied." 2 The American scene might well have been specifically designed to confuse an eager student of society like Wells who was also a Fabian socialist. He did not have to search to find the economic inequality and the worker discontent which his socialist bias led him to expect. Yet, Wells was too acute and honest an observer to fail to report that the inequality and the discontent did not produce the social attitudes and problems which socialism predicted. Not only [1]

were the exploited masses "roughly prosperous" and "generally self-satisfied"—the masses, as distinct from the classes, did not even exist. As Wells himself insisted, America was made up entirely of one vast middle class.3 Wells was not the only eminent socialist scholar to find himself in this dilemma. Werner Sombart, the distinguished German economist, believed that "the United States is the one country in which the . . . Marxian theory of evolution has been most minutely fulfilled, in that the accumulation of capital has reached the stage . . . immediately preceding the Gotterdammerung of the capitalist world." Yet he found that the American worker was "on the whole not dissatisfied with existing conditions; on the contrary . . . his view of the world . . . is most rosily optimistic. . . . [He] is not in any way antagonistic to the capitalist economic system as such. . . . Indeed . . . he enters into it with all his heart: I believe he loves it." 4 W O R K IN A C L A S S L E S S

SOCIETY

In the experience of the European, industrial strife was a conflict between two classes, almost two distinct orders of mankind, separated from each other by a wide and impassable gulf of habits, attitudes, and material conditions. Industrial conflict and working-class discontent in the United States perplexed the European observer because, by many of the standards which his experience led him to apply, America was a classless society. The European was fascinated by the general air of prosperity, the free-andeasy relations between persons on different social levels, the lack of social distinctions, class hostilities, class jealousies, class political issues. This side of the picture is clearly shown in the vignettes of American life drawn by less sophisticated visitors. There was a characteristic mixture of admiration [2]

and ridicule in an English journalist's description of a $250a-year flat in New York City: Your neighbour may be an Italian costermonger or a PolishJewish vendor of old clothes. In any case he is almost sure to be noisy, while the court will be filled with clothes drying and the smell of every unsavoury kind of cooking in the world. . . . Yet . . . there are advantages which no mechanic in England is likely to find. The sanitary, heating, and lighting arrangements are better, the stairs and halls are carpeted, the whole place is decorated, not magnificendy, but at least with an attempt at grace and comfort. . . . You will answer that the English mechanic would never dream of paying £ 5 0 a-year in rent. . . . But then the New York mechanic [that is, highly skilled worker] can afford it. . . . In New York there is none of the foolish convention that compels the clerk with a pound a-week to live in a more expensive house than the working man with two. This is no doubt a blessing, but it has its reverse side. If the carpet and the gilt decorations stimulate social self-respect in the working man, the cabbage-water and the brats on the doorstep tend to destroy it in the clerk.5 Whether they liked what they saw or not, most foreign observers did not doubt that America was a democratic society and that the circumstances of workers and the attitudes towards work and towards working people were very near the heart of American democracy. They did not mean, in any literal sense, that there was even approximate equality of wealth, social status, or power in the United States. They meant, first, that most jobs were almost equally respectable. Different occupations, of course, brought differences in prestige, but neither the occupation nor the prestige implied any fundamental difference in the value of individuals. "Gloze it over as we may," wrote a British engineer: there is a great gulf fixed between the ideas of Old and New England on this radical question of the dignity of work. . .

[3]

We . . . cannot escape the influence of our traditions. The man who does service for another was a "villein" . . . and is an "inferior" now; just as a man of no occupation is a "gentleman," and a governess a "person." Use has made us unconscious of the fact that the "dignity of work" is a mere phrase in our mouths, while it blinds us to the loss of national energy which avenges outraged labour. . . . Matters are very different in New England.* The German-American psychologist Hugo Miinsterberg explained the difference in the following terms. The American notion of equality has nothing to do with the religious conviction that all men are equal before God. Neither is it an ethical principle. It is, rather, a fundamental conviction about work. "Every one says to himself: All of us . . . are at bottom comrades. . . . A division of labour is necessary, but as long as any one does the work apportioned to him he belongs . . . to the fraternal circle, quite as well as the one who by reason of industrial conditions or natural talents comes to take a more distinguished or agreeable position." Miinsterberg was "again and again reminded of actors who play their part. . . . One is as good as the other, even when the parts require one to swagger . . . and the other to sweat." 7 The nonchalance with which Americans took jobs "beneath their station in life" astonished the Europeans. If a professional became a business official, Americans were not surprised. The son of a manufacturer was likely, as in Europe, to become an official in his father's business, but only in America did he expect to begin by working in the factory with his father's employees. The European university student who needed money might tutor or undertake some other form of intellectual work; but working one's way through college by tending furnaces or waiting on tables was (and still is) a unique American institution.

[4]

More amazing to the European was the fact that the student could become a waiter or a janitor temporarily without losing prestige. Two exceptions to the respectability of all occupations were generally noted. Visitors found that it was almost impossible to hire a personal servant, and completely impossible to hire one who acted like the European version of a proper servant. Americans would not willingly accept the subordination involved in ministering to the personal wants of others, and when they did, it was only with an exaggerated display of the "I am as good as you" manner. One occupation even more repugnant to the dignity of the American was blacking shoes. One visitor tells how, "in a number of houses, we surprised our friends themselves occupied in blacking our shoes, the servants not being accustomed to it." 8 Europeans found also that respectability without work was impossible, that work was the preferred route to status. "There must be either a vein of duplicity, or a streak of insanity [according to Americans] in a man of forty-five who is willing to live on his income. . . . In England polite snobbery dictates the question: 'How are you amusing yourself?' In America polite snobbery dictates the question: 'What [work] are you doing?' " 9 Many foreigners were dismayed by the "aristocracy of wealth" which they found in democratic America, and mistook it for a vulgarized version of the European aristocracy. More perceptive visitors, however, perceived a major difference. In Europe, being wealthy was an admirable condition, but getting wealth was somewhat disreputable. In America, working industriously at the acquisition of wealth was most respectable, but living idly on accumulated riches was reprehensible. When one society declares that respectability and gainful employment [5]

are incompatible and the other finds them inseparable, there is no question about which offers the higher social status to the worker. Such attitudes toward work would not have been significant, or even possible, however, without both material prosperity and a genuine opportunity for economic advancement for most workers. While great fortunes and extreme poverty were obvious aspects of American life, foreign visitors saw also that relatively few Americans lived in want and that most lived in comfort and even luxury by European standards. The American worker could not only think himself as good as anyone; he could eat, drink, dress, live, and be housed and amused much like his fellows. Moreover, only in America was the worker encouraged to look forward to a future which would provide still more of the comforts of life. The visitors to America generalized outrageously on the basis of limited and selected evidence. Yet, whether they spent their time in Washington and Philadelphia society and saw no more of work and workers than chance contacts permitted, or whether they studied the "labor question" in detail and at first hand, they arrived at broadly similar conclusions about work and wealth in America. The similarity of conclusions based on diverse observations was simply another indication of the absence of sharp class differences. Even hostile visitors confirmed this judgment, for, what they disliked most was that the well-to-do behaved disgustingly like the vulgar masses, while the masses assumed the prerogatives of their betters. One Englishman who treated America as a fit subject for the amusement of other Englishmen put it this way: " I have heard it said that the American workman asks for bread, with a cigar in his mouth. Possibly he does; I never heard one ask for [6]

bread, though I can testify to the cigar: it is not a good one. " 1 0 A C H I E V E M E N T AND ASPIRATION

Some foreign observers found the arrogance of American workers intolerable. "Though you pay peaceably through the nose, your coachman expectorates as he gets back on his carriage, with never a word of thanks," wrote one observer." Others pointed out, however, that the insolent worker was probably an immigrant asserting his new-found independence, or that the visitor's air of condescension had inspired the insolent response. The free-and-easy relation between the classes in their public contacts was unquestionably one of the distinctive features of American life. Visitors noted the good humor with which the upper classes accepted the annoyances of the street, the shop, or the train from which they would have been exempted in Europe. No one expected special consideration and no one got it. A blunder by the waiter or the conductor was generally accepted without a scene. On the other hand, the waiter or the conductor might perform some unrequested litde service without expecting special thanks and with no thought of a tip — the latter, a European institution not yet fully domesticated in the United States. The root of this behavior, as Wells explained, lay in the absence of the "feeling that property, privilege, honor, and a grave liability to official public service ought to go together . . . that uncritical obedience is a virtue in a worker or that subordination carries with it not only a sense of service but a claim for help." 11 Another expression of the same attitude was the lack of organized effort to elevate the working classes. The rich

[7]

found such efforts no part of their duties; the worker regarded them as a reflection on his ability to take care of himself. As one Frenchman observed, philanthropic societies for the construction of working-class homes were common in France; in America, however, such organizations were invariably self-supporting business ventures.13 American social equality became both more explicable and more impressive to those visitors who inquired into the material circumstances of American workers. Lord Bryce doubted "if any European can realize till he has been in America how much difference it makes to the happiness of any one not wholly devoid of sympathy with his fellowbeings, to feel that all round him, in all classes of society . . . there exist in such ample measure so many of the external conditions of happiness: abundance of the necessaries of life, easy command of education and books, amusements and leisure to enjoy them, comparatively few temptations to intemperance and vice." 14 By any American standard this was a gross exaggeration — which is simply another way of stating that it was as difficult for the American who had not been to Europe as for the European who had not been to America to appreciate the relative wellbeing of the American worker. The point of Bryce's observation is sharply illustrated by the exasperation of a German reviewer whose socialist training and European experience made him unable to take Sombart's report on the American worker at face value. The reviewer summarized Sombart's description as follows: The wage of the American workman is from two to three times as high as that of the German. . . . The American lives far more comfortably. . . . He does not save any more, but occupies as a rule four rooms, the German not quite two. He furnishes his rooms comfortably. He eats almost three times

[8]

as much meat, three times as much meal, and four times as much sugar. . . . Finally in dress the American workman, and also the working woman make no distinction between themselves and the wealthy middle class. (Ye shades of Ananias.'). . . . According to Sombart . . . the American . . . lives much more moderately, temperately, (sic!) His social position also corresponds with this economical position and political influence : that is the social respect which he enjoys with the other classes. Ye gods! T h e workingman over there is a "gentleman" . . . just as good as any other. (This beats even . . . Grimm's fairy tales.')16 T h e visitors who saw the homes of skilled workers f o u n d that they lived like the middle class. O n e French visitor described the house of a mechanic in the Baldwin locomotive works in Philadelphia: At the first glance comfort and ease were revealed by many details. The . . . floor of every room is completely carpeted; the whole house is heated by a good stove, and lighted from numerous gas-burners; the furniture of the parlor recalled that in the house of some petty French official. . . . A marble clock stood on the mantelpiece; there were two mirrors on the walls, and framed photographs of relatives and friends; in a word, the usual decorating of a bourgeois interior, with some traces of greater taste added; for instance, the interior Venetian blinds were of varnished pine and had an elegant air. 16 This worker h a d six children, all under ten years old. H e was an Alsatian immigrant who had then (1892) been in the United States a b o u t twenty years, a n d was earning $20 a week, not an unusual wage for a skilled worker. T h e brick house was rented for $15 a month, and the family was about to purchase a similar one consisting of four rooms plus kitchen, lumber room, a n d bath, with water and gas, for $2,000 cash. [9]

Only the skilled workers in the high-wage industries were this well off. But here is an Englishman's description of a French-Canadian home in Willimantic, Connecticut. The home, a small cottage, was tenanted by a French-Canadian family, only one of whose members could speak English. She, a comely girl of eighteen, told us that her parents and the three elder girls, of whom she was one, worked in the mill, earning together five pounds a week . . . that the younger children were at school, and the three working girls pupils of the evening . . . classes. A glance at the spotless kitchen, at the mother's neat appearance, at the father's trim garden, told the rest of their . . . story.17 The family was employed in a cotton spinning mill. The textile industry, as the description indicates, was at the bottom of the wage-scale among major factory industries. American comments on the same scene emphasized the $5 a week average wages and the employment of mother, father, and children in the mills. What impressed the English visitor, however, was the total income of $25 a week, and the kind of living it made possible. Even the slums had a different appearance and significance for the European. H. G. Wells wrote: To me, coming from London to New York, the effect of the crowd in the trolley-cars and subways and streets was one of exceptional prosperity. New York has . . . its . . . noise, disorder, discomfort, and . . . brutality, but to begin with one sees nothing of the underfed . . . dingily clad and grayly housed people who catch the eye in London. Even in . . . the filthy back streets of the East Side I found myself saying, as a thing remarkable, "These people have money to spend." In London one travels long distances for two cents, and great regiments of people walk; in New York the universal fare is five cents and everybody rides.18

[10]

The similarity between the American worker and those who were not wage earners was found in many aspects of life. In childhood the worker received the same schooling as almost everyone else, though he was likely to leave school earlier. His education and his income enabled him to read the same newspapers and books and to go to the same theaters as the rest of the population. Some Europeans realized that the "vulgarity" of American culture was very largely the result of the immensity of the cultural market. The American worker, furthermore, was no more addicted to drinking and gambling than the American who was not a wage earner, and much less than the English or German worker. Unlike the wife of the European worker, his wife seldom worked in the mill or factory, but remained home like wives in other classes. The more democratic visitors were delighted by the difficulty they had in distinguishing workers after working hours, because of the practice of washing and changing to a suit before leaving the factory. Nowhere else did the factory worker have the desire to look like a member of the middle class, the means to maintain two sets of clothing, and the necessary locker and wash-room facilities at the factory. Many of the visitors, admitting that wages were far higher than anywhere in Europe, contended that the high cost of living in the United States restored the balance. As the visitors who investigated prices discovered, however, this was an error. The American worker did spend much more than the European, not because necessities cost more, but because he had the money and the inclination to spend it on comfort. On the other hand, comforts were cheaper in Europe, and luxury was far cheaper. Consequently, the prosperous European could afford a scale of living which the equally prosperous American could not approach. As [11]

one English visitor pointed out, the huge working- and middle-class market for good ready-made suits had no English counterpart. In England the worker could not afford such clothing, while the middle class would not deign to wear it. In America the worker could afford it, and many in the middle class could afford no better. 19 Fresh from his amazement at the abundance of the worker's life, the visitor was astonished to learn that the worker was seldom content. Still, his dissatisfaction was not a matter of resentment or frustration; it was rather an impatient anticipation of better days to come. That the middle classes in general, and particularly in America, have sought constandy, and sometimes franticly, for the wherewithal to live like their more prosperous neighbors, is a commonplace. The difference between America and the rest of the world was that all Americans were engaged in the same striving. Unlike their European counterparts, American workers did not believe that their effort was hopeless, while the American rich did not perceive that theirs was poindess. "The word 'enough'," wrote one critic, is the loneliest, and the least often employed, word in the American vocabulary. Thousands of people in France look forward to an assured income of 5,000 . . . francs per annum, and even less, as a happy outcome of years of steady toil. Pray, where is the American, even though his mother was an Irish peasant, . . . whose dream is to have only an income of $1,000 a year! . . . Their aims are too high, their expectations absurdly out of proportion. . . . They have had more . . . but in time things will right themselves . . . I thank God that I am not to be here . . . when these millions come face to face with the fact that they must learn to be economical . . . i 0 The aspiration for more, as this quotation suggests, was shown clearly in the national trait of extravagance which visitors found even among the working poor. Travelers [12]

distinguished three main threads, closely interwoven, in what they regarded as the spendthrift pattern of the American worker's life. One was the material expression of social equality. If sumptuary laws had long disappeared in Europe, the convention that one's scale of living should be proportioned to one's social position had not. In America, on the contrary, the worker sought to express outwardly the belief that he was inwardly as good as any one else. As Bourget put it, the American "workingmen . . . spend their money as fast as they earn it. They want their daughters to be ladies. Go into their houses: you will find carpets, pianos. It is not that they care for luxuries; it is the profound feeling of equality that urges them to make a show. It seems to them natural, almost necessary, that luxuries should be within the reach of everybody." 21 It would be a mistake, however, to imply that this attitude was strictly egalitarian. Social and economic democracy in America, far from mitigating competition for social status, intensified it by breaking down the barriers which divided European society into non-competing segments. Sombart found that "every American from newsboy up is possessed with . . . a yearning . . . to attain the top by climbing over others. . . . Since all are seeking success . . . everyone is forced into a struggle to beat every other individual; and a steeple-chase begins . . . that differs from all other races in that the goal is not fixed but constandy moves ever further away from the runners." 22 This universal striving for success was the second element in the worker's extravagance, for, as Miinsterberg pointed out, the ability to spend was the only public sign of success at earning. "Thus it happens," he explained, "that the American sets his standard of life high. He wishes in this way to express the fact that he has passed life's examina[13]

tion well. . . . Everywhere that expenditure can be observed by others, the American would rather renounce a pleasure entirely than enjoy it in a modest way." " Some of the visitors found still a third, and perhaps more basic, element in the national trait of extravagance. This was the assumption — confirmed in large measure by experience — that expenditures could be patterned safely on aspirations since income was almost sure to catch up. A French observer exaggerated this confidence somewhat when he wrote, "in . . . Europe . . . the woman must . . . suit her expenditure to her husband's earnings. . . . But the glory and distinction of the American woman . . . is that she makes her husband earn what she wishes to spend." " This judgment was confirmed in a study of Home Life in America by an American author familiar with the British scene: When a new want develops in the average American family, retrenchment . . . is never contemplated as a solution, but a greater income is managed by the male. . . . It is not a question of making "a little and spending a little less" . . . but the constant . . . quest to make much more and to spend it all in the certainty of more to come. The expenditure of the . . . household depends upon mental rather than material limitations, so it is expecting a good deal to look to the American housewife, whose vision includes an almost assured rise in her fortunes, for the exactitude in shilling and pence account of the oversea households where the economic status of the average woman is established at birth.25 T H E AMERICAN AT W O R K

In spite of his comfortable life and his intense aspiration for an ever-higher plane of living, the American worker seemed to the European to be much more devoted to hard work than to play. "It is a trait of undeveloped races that [14]

they arc incapable of prolonged effort," wrote the British visitor who noted the bad cigars smoked by American workers. "In America," he continued, "men seem to have been overdeveloped. . . . Their application is unceasing." 29 A number of the English visitors admitted, with some astonishment, that here even the Irish were hard and efficient workers. According to a Hungarian nobleman and prelate: "There work is everything, and everything has become work. . . . One must keep moving; rest is not understood and is avoided whenever possible. . . . Labour represents . . . the potency of life; one might even say that the terms are . . . synonymous — that, in fact, work in the United States means life." 27 Several observers found that American work habits were illuminated by the contrast between leisure in Europe and in America. "After the day's work is done," according to one observer, the Americans take . . . [their] rest in further action . . . the apparendy heavy and prosaic Teuton . . . sitting down to his . . . beer doing absolutely nothing, is playing in finding quiescent amusement in his imagination. . . . But there is a general feeling . . . in America that it is somehow feeble and unmanly to avail one's self of any such rehabilitation. . . . Strolling, clinging to a strap in a crowded car . . . talking to one's neighbor . . . about all this there is an attitude of relaxation in other countries for those who perform the . . . mechanical labour of office and shopwork, lisdessly well. But not so in America. The same class . . . has had the spirit of play suppressed . . . by the seriousness with which the necessity of hustle and enterprise has been impressed. . . . Work is the natural outlet for mind and body in America. The families who spend all day Sundays stretched on the grass in . . . [the] parks ruminating are almost all foreigners . . . one reason why the lack of normal recreation does not more seriously affect the health . . . in this country is that . . . [15]

Americans like to work, and . . . get perhaps more enjoyment than any other people . . . out of . . . work itself.18 Not all of the Europeans were convinced that Americans were a peculiar people who somehow got pleasure out of hard work. After looking at the startling difference between the statistics of man-hour production here and in Europe, and watching the wage earner at work, many visitors concluded that the worker was compelled to pay a heavy price for his high wages in unremitting, exhausting, life-shortening toil. Typical of such observations were those of the French economist, Levasseur: "They pay you well here, but you have to work hard," said an Alsatian iron-worker. . . . The speed at which the tailors work in . . . New York seemed as bewildering as that of the butchers in the Armour packing house, who kill 5,800 hogs a day. . . . The machine is fast and it sets the pace. . . . Even when the machinery plays a secondary role the men work quickly and no time is lost. . . . A mule spinner of Fall River, who . . . had worked in England for upwards of seventeen years . . . [said] that . . . the cotton-spinner was in a far better condition in England than in America, "because the manufacturers there don't appear to be so desirous of working the men so much like horses. . . . There they give a man a pair of mules . . . and . . . an assistant to work between the mules with him, and . . . [another] to work on the back of the mules; but in this country . . . the employers . . . insist on one man running the mule. 29 Even those who found the burden of work in the United States excessive admitted, however, that American workers did not seem especially conscious of working too hard. Harsh discipline was not particularly in evidence. "As an employer," wrote Levasseur, the American "expects his men to work, and he rids himself without hesitation of those who are unsatisfactory . . . as a workman he is exact-

[16]

ing in many respects, but realizes that he should work hard during working-hours." 80 "The greater intensity of American labor," according to Sombart, "is nothing more than the expression of the laborer's fundamentally capitalist mental attitude," which impels him to "earn all that his strength will possibly permit." 31 Some of the keenest observers concluded that what appeared to be hard labor in America was not as demanding or fatiguing as it seemed. Appearances were deceiving. The American worked long hours (slightly longer than in England ) ; he worked steadily, diligently, conscientiously; he produced more in the same length of time. Yet, he spent less physical energy than the European because he was provided with every facility to lighten and speed his task. "Hard work as it is understood in England only finds a hiding place in industrial America," observed an English trade-union official, and "as soon as it is discovered, a machine is patented which drives it out." 32 Combined with the mechanization of labor, observers found a degree of planning to eliminate unnecessary work and minimize work interruptions which was rare in Europe. "I have seen nothing like . . . [the best American steel rolling mills] in ¿his country," commented another English union official, "either in the matter of output or laboursaving appliances. . . . There is no 'flooring' of plates and picking them up again . . . there is no . . . waiting for inspectors; the cost and labour involved in unstacking for . . . inspection . . . are thus saved." 33 Systematic maintenance and well-organized supply systems kept work proceeding at a steady pace. Observers also pointed out that the American could work faster because standards were lower. Carpenters, plasterers, bricklayers, machinists and others could produce more than [17]

in Europe because no one was concerned with the high level of appearance, finish, and durability which European employers, consumers, and craft unions alike insisted upon. In short, there were reasons to doubt that Americans worked harder than other people — in spite of the impressive testimony to the American devotion to work. As one Englishman put it, "The common statement that the American works harder than the British workman was not justified so far as my observation went. There was certainly no idling about, but close attention to work in hand would be a more suitable phrase to use, rather than working hard." M Close attention to work in hand there no doubt was; but the singular drive and diligence which most Europeans found in Americans at work involved more than that. Americans did not work diligently just for the sake of working, though it sometimes seemed so. They worked for the sake of results, and if results required diligent work, they also required efficiency. For all the extravagance of America, the Europeans were deeply impressed by the economy with which time and labor were used, and the extent to which everything about the organization and practices of industry seemed designed for the largest production with the smallest outlay of human energy. This was the point of a comment by the Hungarian nobleman already quoted: Another great advantage that work has in this part of the world is the great facility . . . with which everything is done. . . . Everything that is superfluous or an encumbrance is dispensed with. . . . We see it . . . in the factories, where any unnecessary fatigue is avoided with the greatest care; also in the undertakings of the largest companies, where two or three directors meet in a casual way to decide in a few minutes the placing of millions. . . . this is even more the case among those

[18]

who handle tools . . . the main feature of American work is that there is no waste, either of time or labour."® Miinsterberg reached much the same conclusion: Superficial observers have often supposed the American to be always in a hurry, whereas the opposite is the case. . . . The American . . . so disposes his precious time that nothing shall be lost. He will not wait nor be a moment idle . . . each task is finished in its turn. . . . This saving of strength by the proper disposal of time corresponds to a general practicality in every sort of work. . . . A certain strict application to duty is the feeling one gets from every work-room; and while the foreigner feels a certain barrenness about it, the American feels that anything different shows a lack of earnestness and . . . good sense.86 American wage practice impressed the visitors strongly, as both an illustration and an explanation of the united effort of management and employees to produce more. The attention of the visitors was drawn not only to the uniformly higher level of American wages, but also to the entirely different outlook toward wages held by American employers. In Europe wages were a cost to be cut whenever possible; in the United States they were an incentive to higher production. "The evident desire of American employers," wrote an envious English trade-unionist, "is to increase wages, as the best means of encouraging efficiency." 37 This English visitor was one of a delegation of British union leaders who toured American factories at the beginning of the century. Most of them agreed that incentive payment schemes were more fairly operated in the United States, and, therefore, that they did serve as an incentive rather than as a source of resentment. As the businessmansponsor of the group summarized its views: "The average

[19]

American manufacturer runs his machinery at a much higher speed than is the usual practice in England . . . and the men ably second the employers' efforts. . . . In England it has been the rule for generations . . . that as soon as a man earns beyond a certain amount . . . the price for his work is cut down; and he . . . slackens his efforts accordingly. . . . In the United States . . . the manufacturers . . . welcome large earnings by the men" because they believe that the higher cost in wages is more than offset by the lower unit-cost of overhead. 38 Another English observer wrote on this question: It is not true that price-lists for piece-work are never cut by American employers . . . but it certainly appears to be less common than in England. The principle of getting the best out of every man on the one hand and of giving every man the fullest opportunity to make the best of himself on the other is more in consonance with the American than with the English spirit. There is more alacrity to apply it on the part of employers and less opposition on the part of the men or of the trade unions.39 Even where time wages were paid the same attitude seemed to prevail. T h e phrase "good wages for good work," or some variant, comes up again and again as the epitome of American wage philosophy. T h e reward for application was steady work at good wages. Moreover, as many visitors pointed out, the rapid expansion of American industry meant quick advancement for the good worker. Promotion for merit was also increased by the willingness of employers to give responsible jobs to young men, by the common practice of filling even top executive positions through promotion from the ranks, and by the greater familiarity of American management with the workshop and the workers. T h e effect of these practices and condi-

[20]

tions, from the employer's viewpoint, was that "the American manufacturer pays higher wages . . . and is not disconcerted . . . because he knows that the self-respecting working-man equalizes the difference . . . by more intense and intelligent labour." 40 On the other hand, the workers had to "keep their eyes skinned and their fingers at work," but in return, got better pay than workers any place else in the world.41 Some of the visitors found that the attitude toward wages had its parallel in other facets of industrial relations. According to one English visitor, the European employer was concerned primarily with keeping the worker in his place, while the American was interested in getting the most out of him and had no compunctions about treating him like a self-respecting human being.42 The typical English businessman, as one of them admitted, seldom left the office for the workroom, delegated most of his functions, held himself aloof from his workers, and expected from them only subservience and obedience.43 The American, on the other hand, spent most of his time in the workroom, worked as hard as his employees, was frequently on a mutual first-name basis with them, was always approachable, and demanded initiative rather than subservience. The suggestion box was a peculiarly American phenomenon which delighted many foreigners. One English visitor commented: "This is a matter which . . . would not be tolerated in most factories in England, as the management would think the employé was getting too large for his place if he suggested any improvement . . . and would in all probability discharge him." 44 Although the democratic tone of personal relations did promote cooperation, the social atmosphere of the factory was not the result of a deliberate effort by management

[21]

to procure the good will of employees, but was simply the extension to the factory of the prevailing American indifference to the protocol and privileges of status. Vigorous industrial disputes were not, of course, precluded, nor were employers particularly concerned with the worker except as a producer. To some visitors, indeed, the main deficiency of American employers was their indifference to the welfare of their workers off the job. "The industrial chiefs . . . usually concern themselves very little about their employees, and do not seem to be very anxious either for their material or moral advancement," scolded one French visitor. "They are usually entirely taken up with the purely industrial side of their duties, and let their workmen put things to rights as best they can." 45 Paternalism was rare, as the attention received by the supposedly benevolent program of the company-owned town of Pullman implies. But while the critics bemoaned the hard-hearted concentration of businessmen on business, some writers perceived even before the great Pullman strike and boycott of 1894 that what Pullman represented was as alien to the welldeveloped independence of the American worker as it was to the business sense of most employers. The same concentration on production was reflected in factory conditions. In every respect which influenced output, conditions of work were admirable by European standards. In addition to the effort to expedite and ease work through machines and rational procedures, light, ventilation, space, and sanitation were generally far better than in Europe, especially in the newer factories. The fact that industrialization had come later to the United States was only partly responsible for superior working conditions. The English were astonished to find American factories

[22]

comfortably heated in winter and sometimes even cooled in summer. "Fancy any English firm being asked to make such provision for the comfort of its employés!" wrote one visitor.46 Others commented on the cool air blown to working positions in iron and steel mills, and on the practice of pouring pig iron directly into cars which were removed immediately to reduce the heat in the working area. On the other hand, amenities that obstructed or did not directly aid production were conspicuously absent. Unlike many "progressive" European firms, few companies provided subsidized lunch rooms or any other kind of eating facilities. The midday break was always short, and lunch usually consisted of a home-packed meal eaten at the machine. Most visitors were shocked by the accident hazards implicit in the high speed of operations, and the almost complete lack of safety precautions which might slow production. Yet, they admitted that workers did not seem perturbed at the hazards of work. Indeed, as Sombart declared, the worker "would ordinarily much rather not have such protection if it reduced his earning capacity in the least." 47 The Europeans found the eagerness of employers to invest in machines highly unusual, but they were more surprised by the complacency of workers and unions in the face of new methods and new devices. One visitor reported that "labour-saving machinery is widely used everywhere and is encouraged by the unions and welcomed by the men, because experience has shown them that in reality machinery is their best friend. It saves the workman enormous manual exertion, raises his wages, tends towards a higher standard of life . . . rather creates work than reduces the number of hands employed." 48 Levasseur

[23]

observed that the high productivity of American industry was made possible not only by the heavy capital investment in "the most improved tools and machinery" but also by workers "intelligent and energetic enough to use [it] to advantage." 4 9 Several visitors noticed that the newly introduced automatic molding machines were generally operated by skilled union molders at union rates—a practice which English employers and unions both refused to tolerate despite the obvious advantages to each. The difference between Europe and America with respect to the whole issue of productivity was neatly summarized by one of the English trade-union visitors. The British employer who wished to catch up with America, he advised, should "remodel and refit his factory on an up-to-date plan, get more in touch with his employés, provide them with a shop that has a degree of comfort about it, and give them a wage that will enable them to live at a somewhat higher standard . . . even if he asks them to do more work for the same." 50 CONCLUSION

Without the phenomenal man-hour productivity of its factories, America could not have developed an industrial economy which gave to an increasing number of workers an increasingly full measure of the material prerequisites for a self-respecting and socially respectable life. T o foreign visitors of a half-century or more ago, this was clearly the most important direct result of American industrialization. It was therefore to be expected that some of the class antagonisms which accompanied industrialization elsewhere should be weaker here. This much is fairly obvious if frequently ignored, but it has not been generally understood that these conditions

[24]

and attitudes gave in turn a powerful boost to the productiveness of American industry. The European visitors saw at once that the honor and reward accorded to honest toil made the American an incomparably better worker—more diligent, more cooperative, more enterprising. But the superiority of the American worker was more than the simple response to good treatment. Americans had long been known to the world as a democratic, intensely individualistic people who placed a high premium on economic success. The second half of the last century brought them a new opportunity for success—a productive, rapidly expanding manufacturing industry which offered good wages and advancement to great numbers of people. It is, therefore, not hard to understand why Americans of all classes pushed into the new economic frontier with an energy and an intentness of aim at least as great as they had shown in conquering the old. Many of the comments of the visitors, particularly on the material welfare of workers, do not apply to the period of depression which began late in 1893. This reservation, however, is not as important as it might seem, for there is no noticeable difference between what they had to say before and after the depressed years. It would seem, therefore—and there is independent evidence which need not be specified here—that the depression of the 'nineties did not play an important role in determining the attitudes of American workers toward work, the machine, and the rewards of life. It is important to note that the visitors were not as unreservedly enthusiastic about American industrial life as the quoted material might indicate. They found much to criticize beyond such relatively minor faults as the extravagance which stemmed from abundance, or the in[25]

solence which sometimes went with independence. More basic criticisms emphasized the ruthlessness which accompanied the preoccupation of employers with production, the cruelty which sprang from an exaggerated reliance on the individual to take care of himself. The visitors were as indignant as native reformers over the exploitation of those who could not protect themselves—children, women, new immigrants in the sweat shops of New York or the company-owned coal towns of Pennsylvania. They perceived the anguish brought by the loss of work to men who were used to good wages and who believed that not working was a sin as well as a misfortune. That aspect of work a half-century ago which seems today like the worst exploitation of all—the sixty- or seventy-two- or even eighty-four-hour week—was not much criticized. The reason is plain, however. Except in England, hours were still longer, and even in England they were so little shorter that American practice did not seem abnormal. The frequency and the bitterness of industrial conflict was the most basic fault the foreigners found in American industrial life. Most of the visitors escaped the error of explaining American strikes as the product of exploitation. Although they were not blind to the poverty and degradation of some workers, they were more impressed with the prosperity, the welfare, and the honorable position of the majority. They realized, moreover, that American union members and, therefore, American strikers were mainly the skilled, highly paid workers—not the women and children and unskilled immigrants who were most obviously exploited. Most of the European visitors explained industrial conflict as a result rather than a contradiction of the material and social democracy which typified the life of the Ameri-

[26]

can worker. The abundance of his life, they pointed out, added to the strength of his ambition for still more. His self-reliance made him sensitive to his rights. Industrial conflict in America was a man-to-man fight, with no quarter asked or given, unmitigated by the tradition of subordination on the one hand, or of benevolence and responsibility on the other. For all of its bitterness, the strike in America was not a struggle against capitalism but against capitalists, not against the system, but for a bigger share of its benefits. And when the fight was over, the striker generally became an efficient worker again, whether he had won a bigger share or not; being an efficient worker was another way of winning a bigger share. The Europeans were impressed primarily by the differences between the conditions and attitudes of the European and the American worker. Yet, for all the differences, they found the American sometimes behaving just like the European. It was not just that the American worker occasionally went on strike for what he regarded as his due. His unions were as militant as those of the European worker, his denunciation of the selfishness of capitalists as bitter, his sense of class grievance as strong. This behavior by the American worker is hard to reconcile with the European description of the material prosperity and social democracy of the worker's life, and with his ideological and practical commitment to the maintenance and progress of the capitalist system. The reconciliation is difficult because the Europeans, concentrating on the unique, missed one element of the picture which was not peculiar to America. Struck by the relative classlessness of America, they tended to ignore the fact that even in America economic power was concentrated in a few hands. In this sense, America had a class hierarchy as

[27]

much as any country in Europe. The worker had social respectability, good wages, and working conditions which by and large were tolerable, but he had them only at the sufferance of the employer and largely because it was to the latter's interest. Even if the wage earner worked diligently of his own will and for his own ends, he still resented the weakness which was cast up to him every time his machine was speeded up, or he was fined for a minor infraction, or laid off or his wages cut during a slack season. Class conflict in America, therefore, remained very largely a paradox to Europeans. They perceived that it was a struggle for the benefits of free-enterprise capitalism rather than an attempt to destroy it. But they failed to see that it was even more a struggle for power, with capital intent on preserving absolute control, and the unions on gaining for the worker a voice in the establishment of all the conditions of his work. The underlying issue was the traditional American right of each man to determine for himself the basic terms of his life. The reward of industrial work was a greatly extended opportunity to remake the conditions of one's life off the job, but the penalty was the renunciation of control over one's life on the job. Europeans could not understand America's industrial conflicts because they emphasized the desire to increase the rewards of work but ignored the demand to reduce the penalties imposed upon the worker. For this they can hardly be blamed. There was no precedent to help them understand a labor movement which emerged in this period and which fought with all its means for power and control, without the slightest intention of using control to change the fundamentals of the economy. The breadth of the difference between the conditions and the attitudes of the European and the American worker [28]

is perhaps best indicated by the confusion of some of Europe's most gifted Marxists in the face of the American scene. We have already indicated, for instance, the dilemma of both Wells and Sombart. They agreed that, by all the laws of socialist logic, America's advanced capitalism should have produced the world's largest and most militant socialist movement. But they also agreed, in Sombart's words, "that there is no socialism among the American laboring class, and that those who are called socialists are really only a handful of bankrupt Germans with no following." 51 They agreed further that the basic reason for this was that the most highly developed capitalist economy provided the worker with a material prosperity and social respect unequaled in the rest of the world.

[29]

II

British Productivity Team Reports, ig$o THE national government in the United States scrupulously refrains from bureaucratic interference with business and does not penalize successful enterprise through high taxes. Competition is a universal stimulus to efficiency and initiative, and powerful unions join in harmony with employers to promote cheaper, faster production. Although the technology is highly mechanized and rationalized, the workers seem satisfied with their jobs; their morale is excellent, and they strive earnestly for advancement which is quick and certain for the able. Americans may not recognize their own industrial economy when it is thus described. Yet these were its significant features according to several hundred British businessmen, technicians, union officials, and workmen who came to study American industry under the auspices of the Marshall Plan and the Labour Government. The Anglo-American Council on Productivity, formed in 1948, sent almost seventy productivity teams to the United States. Together, their reports are the most comprehensive foreign analysis of work in America ever attempted. 1 AMERICAN I N D U S T R Y IN

1950

Like earlier visitors from abroad, the productivity teams found the effective use of human labor the most distinctive characteristic of American industry. Most of the teams con[30]

eluded that productivity per worker is far higher in the United States than in England, partly because of differences in technology. Thus, the Lancashire weaver usually runs four non-automatic looms, while the American tends at least one hundred which arc fully automatic. But even when allowance is made for his superior equipment, the American worker still turns out more than his English counterpart. American critics frequendy cite the building trades as an extreme example of inefficiency, outmoded practices, and obstructive union regulations. One of "the . . . deepest impressions" received by the British observers, however, was "the speed with which buildings of all sizes are erected." The building team found that on operations similar as to methods, design, and equipment, output per man-hour is half again as high here as in England. 2 In the last few years, as in 1890, visitors have explained American productivity very largely in terms of the energy, enterprise, and diligence which typifies America's industrial personnel from top management to unskilled laborer. They continue to explain these characteristics as products of the universal drive for personal economic advancement, which, in turn, reflects the democratic conviction that the quest for a better life is both the right and the duty of all men. They have also emphasized that this complex of peculiarly American values and attitudes can flourish only in a free economy which provides generous opportunities for a better life for the great majority. Unlike most American critics of the same scene, the foreigners have gone right on describing America as the land of competition, enterprise, ambition, opportunity, economic freedom—and, as a result, of unequaled productive efficiency and material prosperity. The contrast between American and European judgments on these matters springs largely from the different

[31]

background of experience against which the European evaluates the American scene. Thus, when the visitors say that American taxes are low, the statement means no more than that British taxes are higher. The hasty visitor to a foreign land, moreover, is more likely to notice the few instances which are strange than the many which are familiar. A difference of shading may appear in his account, therefore, as the difference between black and white. Unlike the earlier visitors, the productivity teams all came with a single definite purpose which gave an additional bias to their judgment. They came, not to make a balanced survey of American industry, but to see what in America could be imitated to the advantage of British productive efficiency. Both the background and the purpose of the British teams have undoubtedly led to an unduly favorable interpretation of American industrial society. The value of their conclusions, however, lies precisely in their emphasis on the virtues which the American critic is likely to overlook. According to many of the British, the success of the American industrial structure is heavily dependent on the reconciliation of two pairs of apparendy opposing factors. In the first place, America seemed to have found the way, through unions and through government, to protect the defenseless, to reduce insecurity, and to disperse power, without at the same time diluting the atmosphere of selfreliant ambition in which American industry grew up. The importance of this accomplishment in British eyes appears in the judgment that nothing can save the world position of England or the living standard of its workers unless Englishmen develop some part of the attitudes of Americans toward work, progress, and profit. "Management, foremen, and worker should forget old-fashioned traditional ideas which often hinder production," argues one of the [32]

reports, "and endeavour to emulate the American approach to new ideas, processes, and techniques. . . . The British worker should make up his mind whether he wants security and leisure or a better standard of living. The latter can be obtained only by effective work, industriously applied, so typical of his American brother." 5 The British also found that America had developed an advanced degree of mechanization and work specialization without condemning the mass-production worker to a lifetime of routine, unrewarding tasks. On the contrary, American technology seemed to have achieved the highly efficient use of human skill without sacrificing either the financial or the emotional rewards of work. PRODUCTIVITY

The British visitors were prepared to find productivity higher than in England, but they were somewhat surprised by the reasons which accounted for the difference. Some of the teams had believed, for instance, that American workers are driven to a furious pace by the threat of summary dismissal or by ruthless incentive payment schemes. They discovered, instead, that workers are protected from arbitrary dismissal by seniority rules, the like of which are almost unknown in England; that incentive payment is less common than in England; and that few employees are overworked by English standards. Other illusions were also destroyed. "The American brassfoundry industry is not of the up-to-date, highlymechanised type so many people associate with the United States," reported the British team. "It is similar to that in Britain, being made up of a large number of . . . small foundries. On the technical side Britain is ahead of American standards." 4 Other teams also found, as in England, [33]

whole industries dominated by small jobbing shops turning out products in a variety which precludes the assembly-line approach; many factories "seventy or eighty years old" s ; many machines " 3 0 years old still running." 8 On the whole, of course, the American factory was better equipped than the English. Still, the difference was frequently less than anticipated, and in many industries, it was not enough to account fully for the difference in productivity. Most of the reports concluded that a major source of American efficiency is the "productivity-mindedness" of the entire industrial labor force. "Rather than machines," wrote the coal mining team, "we should like to see injected into the British industry the sense of adventurous urgency which characterises the American attitude . . . and is found in management and men alike." 7 Although they pointed out that America's natural resources, the size of its home market, the lowness of its taxes, and other favorable circumstances make it much easier for managers to increase the efficiency of their operations, many teams concluded that American management tries harder to cut unit costs in every possible way. The general tendency in England is to do things the traditional way; in America, the fastest, cheapest, easiest way consistent with adequate functional quality. "The Americans at all levels are much more receptive of new ideas than the British," wrote one of the teams, "and we felt that the introduction of new methods, equipment and machinery is welcomed more readily than it is in Britain." 8 Even the undeniably superior equipment of the American factory and the tendency to "mechanise every operation that can be mechanised," 9 the British felt, are at least as much the result of productivity-mindedness as of the greater capital resources and larger markets available to the

[34]

American manufacturer. Moreover, large investments in machinery would not be profitable unless the American operative was prepared to get far more output from his expensive equipment than an Englishman could anticipate. "One striking example of the attitude to work," declared one of the teams, is to be seen in the many and varied duties undertaken by the driver of any city bus. . . . Single-handed, he drives the vehicle holding from 30 to 50 passengers along the busiest of city streets, collects the fares as passengers enter, issues tickets and transfers, gives change, operates the exit doors at the front and the rear of the vehicle, sorts and stacks the money received, from time to time completes his route card, and still remains reasonably good humoured. Admittedly his job is made easier by the care taken in the design and planning of the vehicle, but this itself is an indication of the urge to eliminate all unnecessary, unproductive labour. We report this but do not commend it as we do not believe this method would satisfy the standard of safety normally regarded as essential in this country.10 The basis of the American worker's attitude, the British agreed, is his intense aspiration for a higher material standard of living: The American workman is not a mere workman; he is an American and he aims to live as well as, and . . . to "have fun" to the same extent as any other American. . . . The American's social status is measured in terms of ownership, not so much of money as of material goods. Social status is most important to Americans. . . . They are fond of their homes, fond of good clothes, fond of going one better than the family next door. In th' respect there is far greater competition than is found in Britain. . . . Having obtained his motor-car and his home . . . and clothed his family well, the American embarks upon the purchase of a refrigerator, television set, electric washing machine . . . luxuries to the British, but to the Americans essentials.11 [35]

The British operative on piece rates, one of the reports noted, frequently sets himself an earnings target which he can reach with considerably less than full effort. At Christmastime, however, he raises his target and his effort. The American, on the other hand, works constantly to reach a Christmas target.12 The necessary corollary to the ambition of the American worker, as a stimulant to his effort on the job, is the conviction that earnings are directly dependent on the quality of his work. "Wages . . . are such that when the . . . worker wishes to improve his standard of living," wrote one team, "the improvement follows in proportion to his extra effort." 15 In describing industries in which incentive payment schemes are more common than in England, the reports place great emphasis on their effectiveness, made possible largely by piece-rates high enough for the average worker to earn a substantial bonus without undue exertion. In the majority of industries, in which incentive payment is less common here, the reports find other connections between earnings and effort, the most important of them, the substantial opportunity for advancement. In almost every industry, the wage range is considerably broader than in England and the barriers between grades are lower. In England the usual prerequisite for a skilled job is still a craft-union card, available only to the man who has completed five or six years of apprenticeship training which usually begins at the age of fifteen or sixteen. Here, on the other hand, "high productivity is the golden road to a better rated job" 14 for all workers. Apprenticeship is exceptional and skills are acquired gradually on the job. Because of the breakdown of work into specialized operations most jobs are quickly learned. Consequently the advancement of the [36]

worker depends more on his diligence and energy than on his formal training.15 The reports also conclude that the occupational hierarchy in America, from bottom to top, is more nearly a single ladder than in England. Almost all of the foremen, and the great majority of higher officials, according to the reports, had worked their way up from the shop floor. In Britain, on the other hand, traditional social barriers prevent movement from wage earner to official except in rare instances. In addition to the direct economic incentives to productive effort the British found that Americans of all classes are moved by a deep-seated conviction that high productivity is the basis of the American standard of living. As one of the reports declared: "First, last, and all the time, managements are actuated by the belief that high rates of production are essential to individual and collective success. First, last and all the time, workers at the bench, at the machine, and in the offices subscribe to that same belief. . . . This belief is not simply intellectual appreciation; it has a firm emotional hold upon the whole body of American industrial thought." 16 The American faith in productivity, it seemed, was reflected in the difference between the English and the American attitudes toward the threat of unemployment. In Britain, where manpower shortages have been a serious problem for over a decade, the fear that efficient production will throw men out of work is still strong. Many employers retain the traditional attitude that one of their duties is to provide as many jobs as possible. Workers and unions tend to resist labor saving methods and machines in order to prevent "redundancy" of products and of workers. In the United States, on the other hand, where the level [37]

of unemployment, though low, has been consistently higher than in England since the end of the war, fear of overproduction seemed absent. "It is generally agreed," according to one report, "that productivity itself is the goal and that, the more it is achieved, the greater the degree of 'full employment' and 'security' that will follow from it." 17 The British were astonished to find that in the coal industry, with its history of chronic overproduction and underemployment, the union actively encourages mechanization, "even in the certain knowledge that it will reduce the number of men employed; the union argues that wages will be increased and hours reduced for those that remain; more money will be available for improving working . . . conditions . . . more and cheaper . . . [production] will create employment in other industries for the displaced." 18 The individual worker, it seemed to the British, reacts to the constant threat of technological displacement by producing as effectively as he can in the knowledge that he has no other guarantee of keeping his job. The result of the whole pattern of American attitudes was summed up by the building team: "You have only to lean out of any midtown window to notice the furious concentration and energy of construction workers while they're on the job. At five o'clock they will quit like an exploding light bulb, but up to that moment they haul and hammer and drill and bulldoze with fearful zest." 19 W O R K IN T H E AMERICAN F A C T O R Y

Somewhat to their surprise, the British could find little to admire about American factory buildings. Most are nondescript, middle-aged, multi-story buildings, ill-adapted to modern ideas of efficient layout. Housekeeping standards are usually low. Dirty windows, dingy paint, and the accu-

[38]

mulation of dirt on and under machines were frequently observed. On the other hand, the Americans neglect appearances only to concentrate on utility. Windows are dirty, but the generous use of fluorescent tubes results in far better lighting than is usual in England. Aisles and working areas are generously proportioned and are kept uncluttered. Tools and materials are neatly stored. Buildings are wellheated so that workers are not encumbered by heavy clothing during the winter as they still are in England. Where heat, fumes, or dust are a problem, ventilation is generally better than in England, in spite of the absence of strict factory regulation. The visitors to American forges were impressed by the fact that working temperatures are "cooler . . . than in British forges with the outside temperatures 20 degrees F lower." 20 Yet, when efficient production and comfortable conditions conflict, American employers favor production. Thus, for technical reasons, and even in the middle of the summer, cotton mills maintain a degree of humidity forbidden by English law. The mechanical equipment of the factory made a far better impression on the English than the factory itself. Still, none of the teams found the American factory benefiting from superior technical knowledge; and most of them found only a little truth in the notion that Americans are constandy scrapping good machinery for better. On the contrary, they frequendy found high rates of production achieved with old machines ingeniously adapted to new tasks, and maintained systematically with a care which the English seldom attempt. Thus, in the plastics industry, equipment was "generally much older than in Britain, but the engineering departments of the companies con[39]

cerncd have adapted . . . it to give efficient service and a high rate of productivity." 41 It was not the newness or the technical superiority of American machines which made the greatest impression, but the abundance of machines and power in relation to workers, and the widespread use of special purpose machines or fixtures, even for short production runs. The visitors declared that "wherever it is possible to save physical effort by using a mechanical aid, it will be done." 22 "Carrying by hand is almost a forgotten task," 23 declared one report with some exaggeration, while another found that "contrary to British practice men were not expected to lift heavy weights, in fact, heavy lifting . . . was discouraged— 45 lbs. was the maximum weight lifted by hand at one works." 24 The British were also impressed by the amount of ingenuity expended on simple gadgets like clips, fasteners, and holding devices to make easy tasks still easier. Several of the reports describe dozens of such devices unknown in England. The corollary of full and efficient labor utilization in the United States, it seemed to the British, is full and efficient utilization of plant and equipment. They reported many striking examples of the combination of expensive, modern machinery operated by a minimum crew, able and willing to use it at top speed. Thus, in the steel foundries, the British were impressed by the technique of "snatching" castings which enables one man, operating a modern magnetic crane at top speed and with great precision, to remove castings from molds far more rapidly than three English workers using a conventional crane. 25 American attitudes toward industrial safety seemed to the British another strong indication of the general tendency to maximize the utilization of labor time, plant, and

[40]

equipment. British practice, strongly reenforced by law, is to make machines and processes as accident proof as possible. American practice is to remind the worker of the need for constant alertness and care. The observations of one of the teams are typical: "In America, accident prevention and the maintenance of healthy working conditions are on the whole subordinated to the demands of production. . . . In one . . . factory there are many large electro-plating tanks, filled with hot corrosive solutions . . . their top edges . . . not more than 12 in. above ground. No guard rails are fitted and some operators wear neither apron nor goggles. Apparently, guard rails had once been provided but they were removed because they hindered the operators. Such conditions . . . would not be tolerated in Britain. Yet neither managements nor workers appeared in any way perturbed." 28 In most industries, however, accident rates were no higher than in Britain. In most factories, plant and equipment overhead are cut by using two or three shifts, a practice which British workers and unions often refuse to tolerate. It appeared to the British "that the workers took shift-working as a matter of course and there was not, as far as we could ascertain, any friction about its arrangement." 27 Restrictions on overtime are also less common than in England. Several teams "gained the impression that the American worker reached his maximum rate of output more quickly when beginning the day's work or after a meal break than his British counterpart. He did not necessarily work harder but he seemed to get down to it quicker and to maintain his output up to the last moment." 28 Unproductive time is also reduced by the fact that "the lunch-break is the only break during the eight-hour shift. Most firms allow only thirty minutes for lunch, which is

[41]

usually taken at the machine or work-bench. It was not uncommon to see men actually resuming work ten minutes before the starting whistle. No time is wasted on tea-breaks, and employees themselves expressed considerable surprise that anyone should want to waste time in this way." " In some factories—especially in the iron and steel and textile industries—machines are not stopped at all for lunch, and are frequently in continuous operation around the clock. Another aspect of American practice which facilitates the most efficient use of both machine and labor time is the attitude of workers and unions toward work loads. In Britain there is strong resistance to changes in traditional manning practices even when mechanical improvements simplify the work. In America, one team observed, "There is a refreshing attitude of mind towards work loads. . . . We met no insistence that the same number of machines or the same size of job should be worked by all individuals in a given department." 50 In the metal products industries the British frequently observed workers attending to one machine during the automatic cycle of another."1 The hosiery and knitwear team declared that "it is common practice . . . for a female knitter to work up to 180 feeders. . . . In Britain the work load of a male knitter is commonly limited to 100 feeders, a practice which is strongly influenced by trade union views." 32 Similarly, machines are generally run at or above their top-rated speeds in America. In Britain unions frequently set arbitrary limits on machine speeds, a practice abetted by the management belief that an expensive machine should be treated gently to prolong its life. Undoubtedly the brevity of their visits to American factories concealed from the British teams much of the real friction over such questions as machine manning and pro[42]

duction norms. But there is less reason to question their nearly unanimous judgment that in fact American industry demands and gets from its workers a more concentrated application to duty than the British are accustomed to. As one team declared, "Workers do not normally work longer hours than their opposite numbers in the U.K. . . . but when they work, they work—and with an alertness and a cheerfulness not unknown here but not generally regarded as the natural attitude toward employment." 33 In spite of their agreement on this point, the British found no instances of Americans being overworked. Indeed, most of the teams found that the American seldom works as hard as the Englishman, because most of the sheer physical exertion is removed from his job by the use of power driven machines and tools, and because careful organization eliminates delay and waste effort and removes impediments to the free flow of work." The essence of American efficiency in labor and machine utilization, as one might expect, was found in the extreme specialization of labor. Familiar as they were with the benefits of craftsmanship, many of the productivity teams were convinced that the American system of specialization should be imitated by the British. Some of the reports pointed out that the breakdown of skilled crafts into a large number of semi-skilled operations "does not sacrifice . . . skills, it seeks to employ them to the best advantage." 35 As one team declared, "Good steel castings . . . cannot be produced without skill of a high order. But the exercise of skill has been taken from the shop floor into the patternshop, the methods office and the brains of supervisors." 36 Specialization automatically produces complex problems of integration and planning and a sharp expansion of the need for supervisory, repair, maintenance, setup, layout,

[43]

and design personnel. The great majority of the reports found that the supervisory and service staffs of American factories are a considerably larger proportion of the total labor force than is usual in England. In short, it appeared to many of the British that the traditional craftsman had been more than adequately replaced by an abundant supply of men whose skills were not less, but of a different order. Many of the teams, nevertheless, viewed specialization in American industry with somewhat mixed feelings. In spite of their general approval of American practices in the utilization of labor they criticized the failure to train a larger number of versatile craftsmen through apprenticeship programs. Almost always, however, this argument was backed by no more than the prediction that American industry was bound to suffer eventually. The criticism of specialization on the ground that it destroys the satisfactions of work received little sympathy from the British. They were aware that, by contrast with the tasks of the British craftsman, the work of the American operative is frequendy repetitive, simple, and apparendy monotonous, and provides little opportunity for autonomous judgment. They concluded, nevertheless, that the advantages of the British system over the American are largely illusory. The variety of functions performed by the British craftsman in any one job is partially offset by the rigid barriers between jobs created by apprenticeship requirements and craft boundaries, both jealously guarded by the unions. Wherever the craftsman has retained his place in British industry, it is likely, therefore, that most workers will remain at the same kinds of work their whole lives. Since the craftsman reserves for himself all the operations of his craft, the laborer is confined to the sweeping, hauling, lifting, and carrying, of which there is an abun-

[44]

dance because of limited mechanization. If he does learn a skill as a craftsman's helper, the craftsman's job is still closed to him. In America, on the other hand, vertical and horizontal mobility are relatively easy, not only because of the shorter training required to learn a specialized job, but also because of the practical impossibility of maintaining rigid union barriers between quickly learned skills. "The field of operations of American workmen is . . . more flexible," stated one team. "An American employee may be assigned work outside his normal work. . . . Among British trade union members [such] resiliency... does not always find favour." 37 At any one time the worker performs a narrowly restricted range of operations but during his working life he is likely to work in a great variety of different jobs as he moves up the occupational ladder and as technical processes and day-to-day requirements for different types of work change. Moreover, the proportion of jobs which demand nothing from the worker but sheer physical drudgery has been greatly reduced in America by mechanized materials handling. Several of the reports commented on the great zest displayed by the operators of the high speed mechanical conveyances which have largely replaced human backs in American industry. In short, it seemed to the British that their practices provide highly varied and challenging work for the minority who are skilled craftsmen. American practices provide fewer jobs of this kind, but spread the opportunity to exercise some degree of skill and judgment more evenly through the labor force and permit far greater variety in the kinds of work performed during the worker's career. In addition, the ease with which the American moves from one specialized job to another simplifies the problem of maintaining morale in the face of constant [45]

technological change. Even a major change in processes makes little difference to the worker since he can assume a new role in a new process after a brief period of retraining. None of the teams believed that the specialization of work had aroused resentment or created frustration for the worker. The prevailing judgment was that Team-work in modern highly-organized industry has taken the place of personal craftsmanship as a means of satisfaction in work. Although jobs are reduced to the simplest possible operations of a repetitive native, there can still be satisfaction in performing these as part of a good team. . . . If to this there are added some opportunity to exercise dexterity or to affect the quality of the result, good leadership, and earnings and working conditions which are at least comparable with those obtaining in similar employment elsewhere, work can be a satisfactory and even pleasurable occupation, despite the monotony which is more apparent to the outsider.1* It was plain to the British that the main source of satisfaction to the American worker lies not in the nature of his job, but in the size of his "wage packet" and the prospect of advancement to a better job and a bigger "packet." Neither, as far as the British could see, is endangered by the increasing specialization of work. On the contrary, the efficiencies resulting from specialization are one of the major reasons for a rising wage level, while the decline in the number of highly skilled production jobs is balanced by the increasing number of skilled service and staff jobs, most of which are still filled by promotion from the ranks even though more and more college men are being hired for supervisory positions. It is worth noting, moreover, that in spite of the American tendency to break skilled jobs down to their simple components, many union contracts provide for wage differentials up to 100 per cent, while in [46]

most British industries few craftsmen can earn more than 25 per cent above the laborer's rate. INDUSTRIAL

RELATIONS

" T h e American worker, because he is a believer in the profit motive, has no objection to helping his employer to make more money, so long as his own wage packet increases at the same time,"

39

declared one of the British teams in

explaining the willingness of American workers to cooperate with the efforts of management to increase productive efficiency. Even when he has no particular animosity toward his own employer, the British worker generally conceives of the relations between wage earners and employers in terms of inevitable and irreconcilable conflict. But in America, according to the idealized picture presented by one team, There is a general absence of suspicion and mistrust between all categories of management and workers in the factories. In wage negotiations they realise that their interests may conflict but there is also the fundamental belief that their interests coincide in the prosperity of the firm. . . . The employer and the worker recognise that they are parties to a business deal; from the employer the worker requires decent working conditions, high wages and a degree of job security, in return for which the employer requires efficient work. . . . The workers are interested in their firm primarily as the source of their incomes; the employer is interested in his workers primarily as a means to running an efficient business. Such a system undoubtedly has its shortcomings . . . but it must be admitted that this mutual acceptance of difference of function is no small factor in America's . . . prosperity. . . . There is greater recognition of a common interest . . . than is present in the U.K., where the traditional distrust . . . which is an unfortunate legacy from . . . the last century does much to hinder the good intentions of both sides.40

[47]

The business-like respect which typified the attitudes of workers and employers toward each other seemed to pervade the atmosphere of the factory. "There is a friendly informality in the attitude of both employer and employee," wrote one of the teams, "which undoubtedly induces a cooperative spirit and good team working towards a common objective; the use of Christian names is general. The American approach to industrial relations is more spontaneously democratic with less obvious differences of status between management and workers than is frequently the case in Britain." 41 Some of the teams found that these characteristics of the factory situation were based on a radically different conception of the structure of society: It is recognised that the man who can use his hands qualifies for the same amenities as the man with the brains. Both respect the other's capabilities. Both realise that one would be lost without the other. . . . The American workman is not a workman in the sense of the word used in Britain. He is an American with the right to enjoy the . . . pleasures of life offered to any American citizen who is prepared to work for them. . . . It was seldom indeed that away from a plant, even in industrial areas, one saw a man who could be recognised as a workman. . . . There is no broad division between the boss and the employee. Both earn good money. Both can afford to . . . buy luxuries. The boss does not drive away in his car whilst the employee looks on from the end of a long bus queue. There is no distinction. Both are dependent upon one another and both work equally hard.42 The exaggeration of this account indicates the sharpness of the contrast with attitudes and conditions which the English take for granted. The relative harmony of relations which the visitors found in the American factory does not involve any great

[48]

interest by management in the welfare of the worker. "America is not. so advanced as the United Kingdom in this respect," declared one of the teams. "Canteens are not so general a feature of American industry . . . social clubs were few and those . . . were not so active as ours." 43 The building team noted that "It has become a widely accepted axiom in Britain that adequate welfare arrangements are essential to higher production. . . . On American . . . jobs the accommodation is . . . considerably below the normal standard provided in Britain, and site-welfare is almost non-existent, even when the project is large. Shelter is not provided . . . during bad weather, nor a room for drying wet clothing. In very few instances were there special mess rooms." 44 One of the teams questioned an American official about the lack of certain employee welfare activities in his plant and was told, "If we had any money for such things, it would be better in their pay packets." 45 Formal union-management relations displayed much the same characteristics. "When negotiations are carried out," declared one team, "both sides strive to make the best possible bargain . . . and every detail is the subject of a hard fight. Friendly relations are then restored and both sides work together again for the common good." 46 American unions are much less apt to maintain the antagonisms developed during negotiations. They do not concern themselves with profits, except as they believe that one of the greatest crimes "a company can commit against its employees is not to make a profit." 47 "They do not decry the present system of capitalism . . . but rather support it, well-pleased that they have the highest standard of living in the world." 48 [49]

The less suspicious attitude of the American union is exemplified by the pattern of its daily contacts with management after negotiations have been concluded. Unlike the British union, which insists on being consulted in advance and on the right to veto proposed changes in company policy affecting workers, the American union relies on the continuous operation of post facto grievance machinery; it generally leaves decisions to management until a worker complains of injustice. At least one powerful and militant union "makes no claim to be consulted by management over the conduct of operations, nor even to be informed of its intentions." * 9 Supplementing formal grievance machinery is a much closer relationship between local union officials and managers which is promoted by the decentralization of leadership on both sides. In practice, of course, the distinction between the active participation of the British union and the policeman's role of the American union is less important than the spirit in which the roles are played. The British leave little doubt, however, that their unions frequently tend to obstruct efficient production. American unions, on the other hand, while they leave efficiency to management, regard it as a management responsibility to the worker. As one team declared, in summarizing the impact of American unions on productivity: Although . . . there were . . . disagreements from time to time, one heard on more than one occasion rather striking testimonies from each party to the other. . . . The general fact emerges that in America greater liberty is permitted in the scope of the employer's activities and in the use of tools than in Britain. . . . The unions emphasize that they . . . will assist in every possible way to achieve the highest level of employee performance . . . and that they . . . will not. . . take any action which interferes with the attaining of such objective.*0

[50]

The reports for every industry agree with this evaluation. The opposition of some painters' locals to paint sprayers and rollers is the only union restriction on labor-saving devices mentioned in any of the reports. The British do not maintain, of course, that American unions impose no restrictions on the freedom of management to strive for increased productivity. Like unions everywhere they are intent on protecting and cushioning the worker from the effects of management decisions. One of the most common of their protective devices, the seniority provision in union agreements, is almost unknown in England except in the steel industry. A number of teams were surprised "to find in American industry . . . a system rigidly in force which is the very antithesis of free enterprise." 51 Most of the teams which looked into the effect of seniority with some care, however, found that its advantages, though less obvious, were possibly as great as its disadvantages, even from the viewpoint of productive efficiency. They pointed out that in practice seniority "does not prevent a worker from being discharged, should his work be consistently bad or his output too low," 52 and that seniority rules contribute greatly to the tolerant attitude toward technological change. Far from subordinating advancement to security, moreover, seniority rules make security directly dependent upon advancement, since they give priority to the man in a higher-rated job regardless of his length of service. Union attitudes toward such scientific management techniques as time and motion study and job evaluation seemed to the British another important example of the ways in which the union protects the worker without handcuffing management. Both sides accept scientific analysis as a point of departure for establishing work loads and pay scales [51]

through collective bargaining. Although some unions, like the Machinists, still officially oppose time and motion studies, none of them offers "serious opposition provided there is suitable machinery for resolving . . . grievances," "3 and a few are willing to cooperate actively. "Time study is carried out quite openly in the shops, and although there is a tendency for it to be resented, resentment cannot withstand the results whereby bonus rates such as those quoted can be regularly earned," declared one of the reports." The policy of unions toward scientific management was found to be closely connected with their policy toward the sharing of the benefits of technological advance. Since British unions tend to resist reductions in wage rates and in the ratio of workers to machines they insist in effect that the total benefit of technological change should go immediately to the individual worker whose job is affected, either in easier work or in higher earnings. American unions, however, generally admit "that the work assignment . . . should be changed as . . . justified by . . . new machinery, methods or working conditions. The rate of payment does not vary according to whether the correct assignment calls for a larger or smaller number of machines . . . " but remains constant for equivalent work for the duration of the contract." Presumably, therefore, the full benefit of technological advance goes to the employer as higher profits which, in turn, are claimed by the unions as grounds for higher wages for the whole labor force under the next contract. Obviously one prerequisite for the successful operation of this procedure is some reasonably objective measure of work equivalents, a measure provided by time study and job analysis. In spite of the stubborn disagreement which frcquendy follows when unions and management attempt to agree [52]

over production norms under changed conditions, the important fact, to the British, was that such standards are always held to be subject to negotiation, rather than fixed unalterably in sacred union tradition. In its daily relations with management, in short, the union's contribution to productivity is passive, and consists, according to the British, in less suspicion and greater tolerance of the aims of management than British unions are able to muster. They found, however, that collective bargaining in the United States provides a much stronger direct stimulus to productivity than it does in Britain because of two major circumstances. First, British industries seldom operate under the pressure from price competition that most American industries encounter. Second, almost all British negotiations are nation-wide, while most American contracts are negotiated between one company or one plant, and one local union. "Unions drive the best bargain they can with the most efficient and profitable company in an industry and then bargain with other companies to obtain similar wage rates. . . . Less efficient firms, therefore, tend to be under dual pressure--from unions and customers. Bearing the same expenses for wages . . . as more efficient firms, they are obliged to accept lower profit margines" or to improve their efficiency.56 Local bargaining seemed to some of the teams to provide at least as strong a stimulus to productivity through its impact on the union and the worker as through its impact on management, because it provides a periodic reminder that the bargaining position of the union and the wages of the worker are directly dependent on the profit position of the company.

[53]

CONCLUSION:

1 8 9 0 AND 1 9 5 0

It has already been suggested that the foreign descriptions of work and workers in America in 1890 and in 1950 are remarkably similar. Europeans continue to marvel over the wages and the middle-class living standards of the American worker and over the productivity which makes them possible. The British teams were primarily technical missions to learn how to increase industrial efficiency in Britain. They did not attempt to draw a balanced picture of the American worker's life. Nevertheless, they were frequently distracted from the study of techniques, equipment, and processes by the same values, attitudes, and social conditions which so impressed visitors a half-century ago. Like them, they found that the American worker is more nearly the equal of other members of society than the European, with respect not only to his material prosperity, but also to his attitudes, his aspirations, and the attitudes of others towards him. To visitors American industry has long been permeated by a complex of values and attitudes compounded of social democracy, respect for work, ambition for success, and faith in progress which nourish and are in turn strengthened by the constantly increasing productiveness and prosperity of the nation. On the job the worker continues to give an impression of conscientious effort. Yet he is spared the backbreaking toil of the European by the abundance of power machinery at his command. In both periods the American factory has impressed the European primarily by its single-minded dedication to the job of producing the greatest amount of goods in the shortest time and at the smallest cost in human effort. Mechanization and simplification of work impressed the Europeans as

[54]

much sixty years ago as today. So did many other features of the factory: the provision of working conditions conducive to fatigue-free effort—good light, comfortable working temperature, adequate sanitation; the efforts of management to insure the uninterrupted flow of work; the informality of personal relations; the complacency of workers in the face of labor-saving and skill-displacing methods and machines; the apparent disregard of elementary safety precautions; the relative disinterest of employers in employee welfare activities. Yet, the reports of earlier and more recent visitors differ strikingly in one major respect. Few of the visitors near the turn of the century dealt with unionism apart from their expression of bewilderment over the bitterness of industrial conflict in this land of prosperity and democracy. The productivity teams, however, found it impossible to discuss most aspects of American industry without describing the role of the union. Other changes, reflected in the contrasting observations of earlier and later observers, flowed directly or indirectly from the growth of union power. The ruthless exploitation of the weak, the refusal to recognize the cost to those who failed of the universal drive for private economic gain, the despotism of the employer—benevolent or not, the violent protests of indignant workers, the irritating presence of the radical fringe of the labor movement—these blemishes on the industrial body of 1890 were nearly gone by 1950. In short, from the viewpoint of Europeans, American industry became civilized. In 1949 and 1950 Britain was passing through the controversies aroused by its first period of government by the socialist Labour Party and its trade union affiliates. The productivity teams were especially sensitive, therefore, to both the political and the economic features of the Ameri-

[55]

can compromise between the interests of management and organized labor. And because the teams consisted of representatives of management as well as of the British labor movement, they were well-equipped and disposed to see the problems involved from both sides. In their judgment the striking fact about the American compromise is that it has achieved so much for the worker at so little cost to the incentives of a free-enterprise economy. Indeed, the stability of the European descriptions of American work and workers across sixty years is largely a reflection of the persistence of the attitudes and conditions which make up the highly effective incentive structure of American industry. If this is true, it is important to clarify the distinctive features of the American industrial compromise, as the British see them. Unlike the British labor movement, unions in the United States have rarely opposed change per se, and even more rarely opposed it successfully. They have, in effect, said to management: "Step on our toes and you will hear from us, but until then, do as you wish." Although taxation and governmental regulation have been increased greatly over what they were, they are not onerous by English standards. Nor, by comparison with Britain, have American unions significandy reduced the opportunity or the motivation of the American worker for advancement through his own efforts. The origin of the difference between the British and the American compromise of class interest lies in a difference of attitudes and ultimately a difference of experience. The position of the British unions is a reasonable one for a labor movement which has concluded on the basis of long experience that free-enterprise capitalism presents the worker with little hope of betterment but great threat of harm. By acting on that assumption, by circumscribing the freedom and limiting the rewards of enterprise, British unions have

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limited its potentialities for good as well as for bad and have looked elsewhere for their gains. On the surface, nevertheless, industrial relations in Britain are relatively harmonious and placid. In place of the usual American pattern of innumerable, hard-fought negotiations between local union officers and individual managements, both with a strong personal stake in the outcome, the British pattern is dominated by a handful of relatively impersonal industry-wide conferences. In place of the stubborn and sensitive vigilance of the American local in guarding against injustice and pressing grievances, there is a common understanding that little of consequence will be attempted without prior consultation and agreement. As a result, the setting of industrial relations changes slowly. Habits are formed; old grievances become bearable with familiarity; new grievances are avoided. The American compromise, on the other hand, has been achieved in a context of rapid change which allows no time for the formation of deep habits or for grievances to become bearable through familiarity. New grievances are inevitable with new situations. The British held conflicting attitudes towards these different resolutions of the problems of industrial relations. On the one hand, they were deeply committed to the orderly and rational procedures finally evolved in Britain from decades of bitter conflict. Even to achieve a greater measure of flexibility in British industry, they hesitated to recommend any disturbance of the placid exterior beneath which the basic antipathies are concealed. Finally, they had strong misgivings about the hectic quality of industrial relations here. On the other hand, they were ruefully aware that the innovation, the initiative, the flexibility essential for economic progress are, by definition, ruled out of a thoroughly [57]

stabilized industry. They perceived, with a note of envy, that the element of conflict in American industrial relations may be taken not as a sign of fundamental class antagonisms, but rather as an indication of the willingness of organized labor to tolerate change and work out the inevitable differences, in the conviction that the differences are less important than the common stake in progress. The fundamental conviction of American unions, one of the British teams felt, was well summarized by the constitution of the Printing Pressmen's Union: No organization can expect to endure if it is to oppose progress. . . . Our success . . . has been due to our unreserved willingness to meet the changing conditions of the day resulting from mechanical as well as mental devices and ingenuities. . . . We have seen the automatic feeding machines come . . . increasing the productivity of the individual pressman . . . four or five hundred per cent. . . . In anticipation of the continued improvement . . . of printing presses, we must very naturally reflect its effect upon the printing pressmen.. . . Has it been good that these things have occurred to those who follow the trade? This question can be answered by every pressman . . . who has passed the halfcentury mark because the comparison of his working conditions, his compensation . . . and his home life . . . of yesterday and today is the immediate answer. There can be no doubt . . . as to the value of progress in the human family." Acceptance of change, confidence in the benefits of the machine, anticipation of constandy higher living standards, in short, faith in progress through higher productivity are the elements of this declaration of belief. They are the same elements that Europeans found in the attitudes of Americans at the close of the nineteenth century. The ensuing revolution in the power of labor and the security of the worker left the ethos of American industrial society unchanged.

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Notes I.

THE T U R N OF T H E CENTURY

1. Paul Bourget, Outre Mer (New York, 1895), pp. 159-160. 2. H. G. Wells, The Future in America (New York and London, 1906), pp. 105-107. 3. Ibid., pp. 72-73. 4. Werner Sombart, Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staaten keinen Sozialismus? (Tuebingen, 1906). The quoted material is from the translation by A. M. Simons of portions of this volume, printed in the International Socialist Review, VI (1905-1906), 130, 131, 135. 5. G. W. Steevens, The Land of the Dollar (New York, 1897), pp. 22-23. Although fifty pounds was a high rent for a wage earner at this time, the statement that a mechanic could afford it is correct. 6. Daniel Pidgeon, Old-World Questions and New World Answers (London, 1884), pp. 34-36. 7. Hugo Münsterberg, The Americans (New York, 1904), pp. 532-533, 542. 8. Charles Wagner, My Impressions of America (New York, 1900), p. 129. 9. Price Collier, America and the Americans From a French Point of View (New York, 1897), pp. 79, 90-91. Collier is one of two Americans whose testimony is admitted. Since he spent his childhood in Europe and was later foreign editor of Forum, he was probably more familiar with conditions in both Europe and America than most European visitors. His book was published as the reactions of an anonymous upper-class French visitor. 10. Harold Brydges, Uncle Sam at Home (London, 1888), pp. 200-201.

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11. Collier, America and the Americans, p. 16. 12. Wells, The Future in America, p. 75. 13. Paul de Rousiers, American Life (Paris and New York, 1892), pp. 210-211. 14. James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (London and New York, 1888), II, 662. 15. A review of Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staaten keinen Sozialismus? in the Berlin Vorwärts of Oct. 9, 1906, translated in the International Socialist Review, V I I ( 1906-1907), 424-425. 16. Rousiers, American Life, p. 214. 17. Pidgeon, Old-World Questions and New World Answers, p. 230. 18. Wells, The Future in America, p. 105. See also Merle Curd and Kendall Birr, "The Immigrant and the American Image in Europe, 1860-1914," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXVII (Sept., 1950), 214-219. 19. Mosely Industrial Commission to the United States of America, Oct.-Dec., 1902, Reports of the Delegates (Manchester, 1903), p. 151. 20. Collier, America and the Americans, pp. 139, 206-207. 21. Quoting Monsignor Ireland, Archbishop of St. Paul, Bourget, Outre Mer, p. 176. 22. International Socialist Review, VI (1905-1906), 133. 23. Münsterberg, The Americans, pp. 240-241, 252. 24. Quoted but not identified by John Graham Brooks, As Others See Us (New York, 1908), p. 53. 25. Katherine G. Busbey, Home Life in America (New York, 1910), pp. 127-128. Mrs. Busbey studied the working and living conditions of English working women for the U. S. Department of Commerce and Labor in 1910. 26. Brydges, Uncle Sam at Home, p. 31. 27. Monsignor Count Vay de Vaya and Luskod, The Inner Life of the United States (London, 1908), pp. 144, 187. 28. Busbey, Home Life in America, pp. 173-177. 29. E. Levasseur, The American Workman (Baltimore, 1900), pp. 82-84. 30. Ibid., p. 171. 31. International Socialist Review, VI (1905-1906), 136.

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32. Mostly Commission Reports, p. 155. See also Arthur Shadwell, Industrial Efficiency, a Comparative Study of Industrial Life in England, Germany, and America (London, 1909), pp. 371-374. 33. Mosely Commission Reports, p. 41. 34. Ibid., p. 210. 35. Vay, The Inner Life of the United States, pp. 149-150. 36. Münsterberg, The Americans, pp. 242-243. 37. Mosely Commission Reports, p. 156. 38. Ibid., p. 7. 39. Shadwell, Industrial Efficiency, pp. 398-399. 40. Münsterberg, The Americans, p. 322. 41. Mosely Commission Reports, pp. 161, 164. 42. Ibid., pp. 190-191. 43. Ibid., p. 9. 44. Ibid., p. 170. 45. Rousiers, American Life, pp. 183-184. 46. Mosely Commission Reports, p. 22. 47. International Socialist Review, VI (1905-1906), 136. 48. Mosely Commission Reports, p. 6. 49. Levasseur, The American Workman, p. 391. 50. Mosely Commission Reports, p. 171. 51. International Socialist Review, Vi (1905-1906), 134-135. II.

BRITISH PRODUCTIVITY TEAM REPORTS, 1950

1. As of February, 1953, the reports of 61 productivity teams had been published. American readers may obtain these reports through the Office of Technical Services, Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C. They are cited in these Notes by title only. 2. Building, pp. 4, 15. 3. Brassfoundry, p. 4. 4. Ibid., p. 42. 5. Rayon Weaving, p. 15. 6. Lithographic Printing, p. 13. 7. Coal, p. 43. 8. Pharmaceuticals, p. 66. 9. Ibid., p. 9. 10. Footwear, p. 5. 11. Brassfoundry, p. 6. 12. Hosiery and Knitwear, p. 9. 13. Grey Ironfounding, p. 20. 14. Steelfoundry, p. 33. 15. See also below, pp. 44-47. 16. Steelfoundry, p. 29. 17. Food Canning, p. 5. [61]

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 24. 26. 27. 28. 30. 31. 32. 34. 35. 37. 39. 40. 42. 43. 45. 47. 48. 50. 52. 53.

54. 56. 57.

Cod, p. 19. Quoting Alistair Cooke, Building, p. 55. Drop Forging, p. 11. Plastics Moulding, p. 41. See also Machine Tools, p. 42, and notes 4 , 5 , 6 above. Letterpress Printing, p. 23. 23. Brassfoundry, p. 50. Drop Forging, p. 21. 25. Steelfoundry, p. 16. Metal Finishing, pp. 4, 60. Non-ferrous Metals, p. 14. Metal Finishing, p. 57. 29. Brassfoundry, p. 37. Hosiery and Knitwear, p. 10. See, for instance, Valves, p. 5. Hosiery and Knitwear, p. 12. 33. Food Canning, p. 5. On the latter point, see especially Hot Dip Galvanizing, p. 30; Valves, p. 18; Steelfoundry, p. 15. Hosiery and Knitwear, p. 35. 36. Steelfoundry, p. 12. Welding, p. 45. 38. Hot Dip Galvanizing, pp. 30-31. Metal Finishing, p. 3. Lithographic Printing, p. 52. 41. Ibid., p. 51. Brassfoundry, pp. 8-10. Rigid Boxes and Cartons, p. 5. 44. Building, p. 33. Brassfoundry, p. 37. 46. Letterpress Printing, p. 9. Electric Motor Control Gear, p. 30, quoting a poster issued by the Wisconsin Federation of Labor. Welding, p. 39. 49. Coal, p. 22. Welding, pp. 43-44. 51. Ibid., p. 40. Grey Ironfounding, p. 10. British Trades Union Congress, Trade Unions and Productivity (1950), p. 10. This booklet is the report of a delegation of trade unionists to the United States, published by the T.U.C. independently of the Anglo-American Council on Productivity. Steel Foundry, p. 27. 55. Cotton Spinning, p. 5. Trade Unions and Productivity, pp. 52-53. From the Constitution and Laws of the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants Union of North America, Letterpress Printing, pp. 6-7.

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